Short Reviews [Anchor and Burden - 2023 - "Kosmonautik Pilgrimage"]

Anyone interested in avant garde improvisational music will be well versed with the experimentations of Markus Reuter, and here he is back with Anchor & Burden. He first started working with Bernhard Wostheinrich (keyboards, electronics) as Centrozoon more than 25 years ago, and his idea was to take that as a starting point and then add additional musicians. Instead of bringing in a bassist he instead opted for another touch guitarist and a student of his, Alexander Paul Dowerk, with the line-up completed by drummer Shawn Crowder. They recorded five fully improvised live albums in 2021, but by the time they came together for the 2022 sessions Shawn had gone back to the States so instead they brought in Asaf Sirkis, who Markus has been recording with since 2016. The result is an album which has gone straight past any musical boundaries, as for them they simply cease to exist. I have not heard the previous releases by this band, although I have long been a fan of both Markus and Asaf and remember reviewing Centrozoon as well, but if they are as compelling as this then I may well need to seek them out. Here we have four musicians who are working on their own, yet combining with the others in a way that no-one knows which path they are going to take, and that very much includes the players themselves. They all need to be listening to the other three, and then deciding what part they can bring to the music and whether they feel a need to move it in a different direction or go with the flow, and not playing is a very important part of this. It is interesting to follow Asaf and his style as one can almost hear his thought processes as he sits back at times and is incredibly complex at others, working hard to ensure he adds and never detracts from what is taking place in the studio. This is music which will not be appreciated by many, as it is far beyond the norm, and in many ways is Krautrock being reinvented for a new age, yet if you dare then this is well worth discovering.